Silverthorne - Day 3

On day three we decided to spend the morning being lazy. We looked at a few more of the outlets and just hung out. There are three different "villages" of outlet and to get from one to another, you have to walk on the path next to a river that goes under the freeway. Emmaline decided that she wanted to pick more dandelions along the way. She kept rubbing them on her nose and mouth and asking if it was turning her yellow - which of course it was. She thought it was so hilarious!

About 30 minutes later she started to melt down, her nose was running like crazy, and her mouth was getting red and swollen. That's what happens when you're shoving pollen up your nose I guess - silly girl! We always carry Benadryl with the Epi-Pen so we gave her some of that (we love their Perfect Measure products!) and headed home.

We had lunch and afterwards, we settled everyone into the car for an hour ride (and nap for the kids!) up to Leadville. The ride up there took us though a section called Top of the Rockies which according to our GPS - we peaked at 2 miles 644 feet (11,204 feet) I didn't get a picture of it in time but here is one that was pretty close. Are we weird for taking a picture of the GPS? Probably, but this is my story to bore you with so I'm going to do it any way I can!

The purpose of going to Leadville was to ride the train of course! Anyone who knows AJ knows how much he adores trains. Lately Liliana has been on a kick about trains too - calling everything from semis to RV's a "choo-choo". The train ride was 2.5 hours long. It was kind of stressful because Liliana wanted to run between the cars by herself. That area was all open air with a bar and a piece of fabric to close the hole on either side - so needless to say we didn't exactly relax on the ride. We opted as well for a closed car versus an open air car to prevent small children from leaning over the side and falling out. Of course something DID fall out the window eventually - but I'll get to that.

At the halfway point where we turn around and go back, they stop at an old water tower (that we didn't get in the picture) and let you get off for about 15-20 minutes. We had the conductor take our picture and if you look closely you'll see that she put her hat on Emmaline.

On the ride back we got out the toys because the kids were getting bored. We purchased some toy trains in the gift shop before we left. Liliana's was a little wooden one that connected with magnets and a string on the engine so she could pull it around. The girls played very happily with the trains for quite awhile.

At one point though, Liliana started to play with her train by driving it along the windowsill. Unfortunately, I didn't realize the window was open there and all the sudden I hear Lil say, "uh-oh!" I look over and the engine to her train is nowhere to be found. She pointed out the window like she wanted me to just reach out and get it! Not gonna happen. So that train is now living a peaceful life at about 11,000 ft, along the tracks, just like a real train. Good-bye little train!

When we got home, it was dinner time. The girls had hot dogs and we topped off the evening with S'mores - made in the oven instead of over a campfire. We had to use Hershey's syrup since it is dairy free but that worked out just fine. The S'mores were a hit (sadly no pictures - S'mores are sticky too!)

AJ and I declared it to be date night and decided to order dinner from a local restaurant to eat in while the girls were in bed. We got a recommendation from asking around while we had shopped the day before. We picked a play called Pug Ryans. Can I just say - NOT GOOD. Well, the entrees were good, but instead of the salad, we both opted for clam chowder instead. We LOVE clam chowder. Love it. This stuff was gross! The broth wasn't very creamy and it had a TON of rosemary in it. Who puts rosemary in clam chowder??? Rosemary always tastes and smells like mold to me so it made the soup really really nasty tasting. Yuck. If we had eaten at the restaurant I would have sent it back and asked for something else, and I never do stuff like that. It was bad.

So that's it. All in all an exhausting but fun day!

To Be Continued . . .